I have been searching around but can not come up with a decent answer. I'm building a street/strip 406 sbc with Vortec 062 heads with stock size valves already set up for bigger lift. roughly 10.5:1 compression, RPM air gap intake, I have a 750 holley for it, have not determined a cam yet. I am expecting this set up to run out of steam around 5500rpm. I'm just unsure if I should be using a 1 3/4" or 1 5/8" primary tube or if this set up would prefer a long tube or short tube headers. Any info, opinions, or experiences from your projects would be much appreciated. Thanks!

 

I had 1 5/8 shorties and went to 1 7/8 long tubes. The difference was night and day!

Long tubes with a 1 3/4 primary and a 3" collector is what you should go for.


See my sig for what I have

 

Thank you for the reply! I will look into a set of headers with those specs.

 

With not much rpm...you may get away with the hedman 1 5/8ths long tubes...fit great..but i would spend the money and get the hooker 1 3/4" with 3" collector as stated above.

Im running 9s with a 355 with the hookers for now

 

1 5/8 with good collector design and good flowing exhaust will be more than enough. 1 3/4 likely wont hurt and i do like the hooker 2210's but they are good to 600 hp and your motor assuming stock vortecs will be 450's hp id guess depending on cam so dont really neeed larger tube. Smaller ones may be cheaper.

 

Running longtubes is fine for a manual car, but what about people with automatics who can't fit long tubes?

 

Lt's fit auto cars with some custom y pipe work but you lose ground clearance. Dyno don or slp 1 3/4" shorties are next best bet. Then one of the 1 5/8" shorties with 3" collectors, hooker and hedman make some

 

I'm running the Hooker 2055 shorties now, I just haven't seen anyone mention long tubes in the same sentence with an auto trans.

 

I have had hedman and hooker LTs over the years with only th350 transmissions...little issue fitment.

Exhaust wise I ran s bends with a stright pipe to axle with hedmans and now i run 3" s bends through notches in the frame into 3.5" bullets under the seat...but im a race only guy

 

I noticed with the hedman 68460s mentioned that they are oval shaped right away on the header flange and I have seen other LTs with more of a square port. I plan on gasket matching whatever headers I go with. I have a test head and access to a free flow bench, so will trying to get the exhaust port to match the oval shape that the headman headers be good/bad/hurt/gain compared to just matching headers that already have a square shape to begin with since the vortec heads have a square exhaust port exit?